infinity zone

My siblings and I went to the Pacific Science Center today because my little sister told us there was a Harry Potter exhibition going on. Unfortunately, the exhibit had a huge queue when we arrived, so there was a four-hour wait until we could line up to go into the exhibit.

So we spent the time spending too much money on parking and lunch ... and hanging out in the insect exhibit. We looked at all the beetle models and insect zoos. The hissing cockroaches still creep me out. We also spent a good amount of time in the tropical butterfly room with these owl morpho butterflies ... and atlas moths. 8| So huge, even if they weren't flying around when we were inside. I think I'd freak a little if they were flying around. They were easily twice as large as the butterflies in there.

The Harry Potter exhibit itself was very neat. They had many of the costumes from the various movies, along with main characters' wands and small accessories -- like Hermione's time turner and Ron's broken wand, along with the Marauder's Map and Lupin, Snape, and McGonagall's wands. My brothers were amused by the fine print on Umbridge's decrees, which literally had "Blah blah blah blah b-lah blah" at the very bottom. It was also really neat seeing Dumbledore's wand up close after seeing the emphasis on the Elder Wand's shape in the Deathly Hallows movie (which I saw ... uh, last weekend with my cousins).

Seeing Hermione's costumes up close made me realize just how short Emma Watson is. It was kinda funny. The beds in the Gryffindor dormitory looked much bigger in the films than they were in the exhibit, too. Kreecher and Dobby's models were smaller than I expected, and Fawkes' much bigger than I thought he looked in the films. Hagrid's entire hut was huge, too -- very cool seeing how large his armchair was.

Despite how much I enjoyed the HP exhibit, I restrained myself in the gift store -- I only got a Slytherin beanie. >> My brother asked why I got it, and I told him that Slytherin got no love. :| All the kids who were picked to try on the Sorting Hat (at the very beginning of the exhibit) picked Gryffindor as their favorite house.

Well, I'm done with it. Stayed up all night to finish, but I'm done.

... Yeah, that's not gonna screw up my sleeping schedule.

I can't say I'm too surprised by some things that happened... I adore the amount of backstory that was poured into the book, though. (Hopefully that's not considered a spoiler?)

I can't complain over what happened to my favorite characters.

Look at your LJ "interests" list. If you have fewer than 50
interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and
seventy-five interests, pick every seventh one. If you have over
seventy-five interests, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than
ten, pick all of 'em. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly
what it is about these things that interests you so much.

Auron -- Though I'm not fond of tons of angst, Auron's turmoil was a lot of fun to read into. He puts a nice, different spin on coming back for revenge, and he's cool. >_>

Fanfiction -- I love writing. I love characters that don't belong to me. Add those together, mix in some crazy ideas and inspiration, and you've got an undeniable interest in fanfiction.

Harry Potter -- ... Yeah, for some reason, no one ever pins me as a Harry Potter fan. I don't read "real books" often anymore, but the hype of Harry Potter made me jump the bandwagon back when Goblet of Fire was still new. Since then, every time I read a new book, I get interested in the world again.

Kuja -- I stick to the belief that Kuja was a better villain than Sephiroth ... flamboyant attire aside.

Nippon Ichi -- Disgaea. Makai Kingdom. Yep...

Rufus Shinra -- Once upon a time, I was called the most obsessed Rufus fan on the 'net. T_T Ah, I miss those times... The hair-flipping arrogance got me interested. The rest was 14-year-old squeeing.

Skies of Arcadia -- Ramirez!! *points wildly at icon* Poor, deluded fool...

Ten Wise Men -- Gabriel. Lucifer. Zadkiel. Raphael. Kamael. Haniel. Michael. Jophiel. Metatron. And ... Zaphikel. Wish there was more character development with 'em.

Vincent Valentine -- Back when I loved angst, I really liked Vincent. He's currently just an accessory to other pretty guys, but I'm sure Dirge of Cerberus will give him meaning again.

In other news, the flurry of people trying to download Advent Children and all that stuff is dizzying. I expect a boatload of FF7 fanfics to show up again sometime soon. I just wanna see the Turks... I can remember seeing some of the first pictures of Sephiroth in Advent Children, and all I could think was "Sheesh, he looks ugly. His bangs aren't even pronounced like in the game."

We had a stray cat roaming around the house two days ago. We brought it to the animal shelter yesterday. Hopefully it'll find a good home.

In other news, our parakeets are finding some way out of the aviary. Carni and Duke got out yesterday (and since then been caught and returned) and now Aqua's out today. Ugh.